Two Scholars

Watch Yourself

Just watch yourself. The things that you are doing, you have done so many times. The ways you react, you have always been reacting. In the same situation you always do the same thing. You are feeling nervous and you take out your cigarette and you start smoking. It is a reaction; you have done it whenever you have felt nervous.

You are a machine. It is just a built-in program in, you now. You feel nervous, your hand goes into the pocket and the packet comes out. It is almost like a machine doing things. You take the cigarette out, you put the cigarette in your mouth, you light the cigarette, and this is all going on mechanically. This has been done millions of times, and you are doing it again.

And each time you do, it is strengthened; the machine becomes more mechanical, the machine becomes more skillful. The more you do it, the less awareness is needed to do it. This is why the Sufis say man functions as a machine. Unless you start destroying these mechanical habits…

Sufis have many methods to destroy them. For example, they teach many devices. They say, “Do something just the contrary to what you have always done.”

Try it. You come home, you are afraid, you are as late as ever, and the wife will be there ready to quarrel with you. And you are planning how to answer, what to say – that there was too much work in the office, and this and that. And she knows all what you are planning, and she knows what you are going to say if she asks. And you know if you say that you are late because there was too much work she is not going to believe it either. She has never believed it. She may have already checked; she may have phoned the office, she may have already inquired where you are. But still this is just a pattern.

Sufis say, “Go home today and behave totally differently.” The wife asks you, “Where have you been?” And you say, “I was with a woman making love.” And then see what happens. She will be shocked! She will not have any way to find words even how to express and what to say. For a moment she will be completely lost because no reaction, no old pattern is applicable.

Or maybe, if she has become too much of a machine, she will say, “I don’t believe you!” – just as she has never believed you. “You must be joking! Every day you come home…”

I have heard about a psychoanalyst who was telling his patient – must have been giving a Sufi device, “Today when you go home…” Because the patient was complaining again and again, “I am always afraid of going home. My wife looks so miserable, so sad, always in despair that my heart starts sinking. I want to escape from the home.”

The psychologist said, “Do something. Maybe you are the cause of it. Do something – today take flowers and ice cream and sweets for the woman, and when she opens the door hug her, give her a good kiss. And then immediately start helping her. Clean the table and the pots and the floor. Do something absolutely new that you have never done before.”

The idea was appealing and the man tried it. He went home. The moment the wife opened the door and saw flowers and ice cream and sweets, and this beaming man who had never been laughing hugged her, she couldn’t believe what was happening! She was in utter shock; she couldn’t believe her eyes. Maybe this is somebody else! She had to look again.

And when he kissed her and immediately started cleaning the table and went to the sink and started washing the pots, the woman started crying. When he came out he said, “Why are you crying?”

She said, “Have you gone mad? I had always suspected one day or another you will go mad. Now it has happened. Why don’t you go and see a psychiatrist?”